1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate to techniques for applying a semantic meaning of a word for information retrieval purposes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Full text search engines and other information retrieval systems have become an essential tool for researching and gathering information from computer systems. For example, some websites provide a search engine which allows users to search for information or documents by entering one or more words into a query interface. The search engine searches for documents (e.g., web pages, text/pdf files, etc.) that contain words that match the query terms. A summary of search results may then direct the user to relevant documents.
Most full text search engines return a list of documents that morphologically match one or more of the key terms specified in the user's query. For example, when a user enters “swimming” as a search term, the search engine may return documents that contain morphological variations of the word, such as “swims,” “swam,” and “swim.” Additionally, search engines may return documents that contain different semantic uses of the search words. For example, if a user performs a search for documents using the word “bill,” then a search engine may return a list of documents that describe paid invoices, documents that describe pending legislation, and documents that describe dollar bills.